Corps: Deepening of Savannah harbor still on track for November OK

SAVANNAH — It was SHEP 101 at the seventh annual Georgia Environmental Conference Thursday as a panel of experts from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Georgia Ports Authority reviewed the need for the Savannah Harbor Expansion Project, the unprecedented studies surrounding it and the status of the $652 million undertaking.

The morning session at the Hyatt Regency Savannah featured William “Bill” Bailey, chief of the planning division for the Corps’ Savannah district; Margarett “Mackie” McIntosh, geologist for the Savannah district, and Hope Moorer, general manager of navigation improvements and environmental management for GPA.

“The Savannah Harbor Expansion project is all about increasing economic efficiencies for the nation,” said Moorer, who also serves as project manager for the endeavor. “Savannah is a port of national significance, accounting for nearly 9 percent of all container trade and 12.5 percent of all exports in the country.

“When I began working here in 1999, we were moving about 750,000 twenty-foot containers a year. Last year, we moved just shy of three million.”

Because Savannah is the shallowest among major ports worldwide — 42 feet at mean low tide — most container vessels coming into the port are operationally constrained, Moorer said.

“When we began this study, that number was around 50 percent,” she said. “Today, it’s 80 percent, with 30-40 percent of ships having to wait for high tide to come into port.”

Because Savannah is strategically situated to serve 44 percent of the U.S. population, deepening the channel to 47 feet is “absolutely essential,” Moorer said.

McIntosh concurred, calling the project one of the most-studied in Corps history.

It’s also a project that will bring a 5.5-to-1 benefit-to-cost ratio.

“We’re expecting $174 million in total annual benefits,” she said, noting that mitigation will account for an unparalleled 45 percent of the final cost.

Bailey answered the “what’s next?” putting the earliest possibility of actual dredging around May of 2013.

“The Corps’ Chief of Engineers report was signed Friday and sent to the Department of the Army, which will look it over, then send it on to the president’s Office of Management and Budget.”

The OMB will study the project and decide whether it’s a project they want to spend money on, he said.

“When all those studies are complete, it will go back to the Department of the Army for a final OK, known as a Record of Decision,” Bailey said.

“The Corps cannot start moving toward construction until it has a Record of Decision,” he said. “Even then, it must draw up a legal document of agreement between the Corps and the project’s local sponsor, either the Georgia Department of Transportation or the state DOT and Georgia Ports.

“If the Record of Decision comes, as anticipated, in November, we could expect to execute the contract sometime in the spring and possibly begin actual work around the harbor entrance as early as May.”

SHEP TIMELINE

Following is the latest potential schedule for the Savannah Harbor Deepening Project set out by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers:

• August 2012 - Chief of Engineers report filed;

• September 2012 – Report is reviewed by the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works;

• November 2012 – Project is reviewed by Office of Management and Budget;

• November 2012 – When all studies are finalized, Assistant Secretary of Army issues a Record of Decision;

• February 2013 – Project partnership agreement executed between Corps and local sponsor(s);